


The Spider and the Mouse

by PermianExtinction



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Aftermath - Chuck Wendig
Genre: Force-Sensitive Gallius Rax, Galli's Orphan Gang, Gen, Jakku, Lowkey Galli Palpatine Vibes, Lowkey Trans Galli Vibes, Mentioned Sheev Palpatine | Darth Sidious, Set Mid Clone Wars but before Maul's Canon Reappearance, Speculations about Palpatine's Methods of Dark Sideyness, Spider Maul
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:54:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25736884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PermianExtinction/pseuds/PermianExtinction
Summary: A trash hauler crashes in the Jakku desert, and a group of former Anchorite orphans scramble to it, to pick it clean of anything useful, and to eliminate any intruders who've crossed the line into the territory belonging to their mysterious overlord, the Emperor.Their leader, Galli, has no idea to expect someone who knows his master all too well.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 9





	The Spider and the Mouse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bloodfinsparkingbrakes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodfinsparkingbrakes/gifts).



> This fic is a(nother) birthday gift, this time for bloodfinsparkingbrakes!

The dusty, ragged band of children circled the crevasse where the junk hauler had inexplicably, miraculously crashed; they jeered, clashing their bone spears against their sheet metal shields. Anything that encroached their sphere of influence needed to be claimed.

Their display of force, their formation and synchronization, did fall apart quickly when a younger one complained they’d cut their foot on a piece of scrap, and the others pushed them around indignantly, their mocking redirected at the weak link in the group.

Shoving the front row of children aside, the teenaged leader emerged, his status announced by his tattered but recently washed red cape, and a wire circlet of tiny mouse bones on his head. 

“You’re all embarrassing,” he spat. “Don’t make me regret saving you from a life of servitude.” He too had a spear, but rather than a crude salvaged invention it looked machine-made, with a curved leaf blade, and he had a blaster tied to his hip. “What did you find?”

Most of the children pointed urgently, their voices clamoring over each other. “It’s a monster! It’s a spider-person! It’s there, it’s alive!”

Deep in the wreckage, there was indeed a figure twitching and groaning, dragging a useless lower body with what looked like eight mechanical legs, most of them broken as you’d expect if you crushed a spider with a rock, a few of them shaking and trying to find purchase. 

The intense red and black patterns on the crash survivor’s organic upper half impressed and intimidated the gang leader. “What should we do with it?” he asked, shifting his spear from hand to hand. 

“Throw rocks at it!” 

“Pull its legs off!”

“To the mice with it!” This suggestion provoked a round of cheers. 

The leader sourly swung round to glare at the group. “Only once it’s dead,” he reminded them. “And none of you had the guts to try to kill it.”

“Well, we haven’t brought any droids with us,” one kid mumbled. “They won’t go this far from the base…” 

“Soft little monks! You’re not at the habit houses anymore,” the crowned boy scoffed, knocking the objector’s knees with the butt of his spear. “Before I had droids and traps or even a weapon, I defended the plateau with my bare hands!” He spun to face the wreck and the half-buried survivor, working up the courage to lead the charge. All the other children put on their best war faces. 

The boy’s head and neck suddenly lunged forward on their own, as if they were more eager than the rest of him for the fight, but his eyes were bulging with fear. Paired with confusion, briefly, but then a spark of horrified recognition in its place. The tips of his feet scraped the ground; he was suspended by an unseen hand! The spear tumbled from his fingers and fell; he clutched at his neck helplessly, and then the invisible grip dragged him down over the edge, into the wreck in the pit. 

The children choked on their screams and scrambled away from edge, scattering like the skittermice they threw corpses to, to collect the bones when they were picked clean by thousands of precise little teeth.

Bruised and bleeding from his brow — he’d bounced off several metal beams in the descent, and his crown had slipped and scraped his skin — the leader of the orphan gang got up on his quaking hands and knees. He remembered his sidearm, pulled it out, and aimed it. Where had that spider-legged person gone?

“ _Behind you, boy,_ ” someone growled.

The blaster was torn out of his grasp and flew into a pile of rubbish beyond his reach.

Cornered, the boy rolled, grabbed a piece of durasteel scrap from the ground, and flung it, howling with fury, at the voice.

As one would swat a fly, a red and black arm smacked the metal out of the air. “Pathetic. You thought you could _kill,_ kill _me…_ Silly brat!” 

Once again the invisible hand cinched around the boy’s windpipe, closing tighter and tighter—

And stopped. 

As soon as the pressure released the boy curled up, gasping. He knew there was no way to fight magic like this, he could only give up or hide, and he wanted to hide, he wanted the desolate wasteland he had the misfortune of living on to somehow open up and swallow him whole. A new kind of pressure filled his ears, setting them ringing, as though the air was getting heavier and thicker. Maybe he still had enough rage to launch out in an explosive final attack…

Something metal poked his chest and then twisted deftly into the front of his shirt and pulled him up. It was his own spear, its hooked tip snagged on the fabric.

The man holding it was humanoid, a tattooed Zabrak with burning yellow eyes and scraggly overgrown horns, straining to hold his torso upright, with his bulky lower body, quite uncharacteristic of Zabraks as far as the boy knew, dragging behind him.

“What… _are_ you?” the alien asked, squinting and cocking his head as if trying to hear a strange faint sound in the environment, or the sound of the boy’s true nature humming like a pure note from a struck metal chime.

Limp and shaking, blinking blood out of his eyes, the boy could not come up with an answer.

“ _Who_ are you?” demanded the Zabrak, shaking the spear to jostle the boy.

A bit of determination returned. The boy grabbed the shaft of the spear. “I am Galli,” he croaked. “And I serve the Emperor.”

“Emperor?” his attacker said slowly, rearing back further, like an angered snake. “What _Emperor_ could you possibly serve?” But he didn’t sound scornful; he sounded, just like a snake, rattled.

“Master… Sheev…” Galli managed to get out. “And h-he will kill you if you disturb his secrets. If I can’t do it he will find s-somebody else…”

“ _Sidious…!_ ” hissed the Zabrak, and dropped the spear.

Galli unhooked his shirt and hugged the weapon to his chest, hiccuping and trying not to burst into tears. He’d only been this terrified once before in his life, and the mere mention of the man who had caused that fear was enough to stay the hand of this new threat, this maimed cyborg who could summon the very same power as Galli’s benefactor, employer, master.

Meanwhile the Zabrak man was clutching his head, trembling and gnashing his teeth. “It _is_ …” he was moaning. “I sensed him on you, that lingering presence, that deep… deep… _darkness_ always leaves its mark…” Then he dropped his hands to his sides, clutched one of his broken robotic legs, and began furiously pulling it, wrenching it back and forth, while his shoulder muscles bulged with effort.

With a grunt, the man ripped the leg all the way off, and slammed its end down into the layers of rubble under him. He propped himself up on this limb, gripping under its knee, and dragged himself forward, drawing closer to Galli. 

Galli backed further into the wreckage and wiped his brow on his upper sleeve, smearing the cloth with a red stain. “Who are _you?_ ”

The Zabrak pointed a trembling finger. “You,” he muttered. “What is so special about _you?_ Why choose you?”

Stubbornly, the boy lifted his chin. “Emperor Sheev said this would be my destiny…”

“He’s no _emperor_ yet… No, no, not quite yet. Where is his Empire? No, your Sheev is a Lord of the Sith, boy. Galli,” the Zabrak acknowledged.

The anchorites who once were Galli’s guardians as well as plenty of ordinary folk had words that referenced the Sith, profane words. They called wicked things “sithly”, sometimes, and cursed “the Sith take you!” when they lost their tempers. But Galli heard the word most often from his purple-robed contact, Advisor Tashu, who worshipped the Sith most ardently. 

“I know he is,” he insisted, even though he had never properly learned what it meant.

“How strange he gave you his name… Even a _piece_ of that name could ruin him if the rumors started to spread.”

“I don’t let them spread,” said Galli fiercely. “Tell me who you are.” 

“… Maul,” the Zabrak decided. “I am Maul.”

“How do you know Lord… Lord Sidious?” 

Shiftily, Maul sunk lower and avoided the boy’s gaze, then pushed himself all the way up, forcing the rest of the broken prosthetics under him so he could stay upright. “I was his apprentice,” he spat. “I… I was meant to _rule at his side_ ; he trained me in the ways of the Dark Side and made me strong enough to survive even— this!” He gestured to his gut, where the metal bound the heterogenous halves of his body. 

When Galli stood up, he was taller than Maul seated on the tangle of metal legs (he thought he wouldn’t have been taller, otherwise), but he still felt tiny. He didn’t have sorcerous powers, and he certainly didn’t think he could survive any mortal wounds like being cut in half. All his pride and smugness from lasting years defending the Plaintive Hand Plateau shriveled like a salted slug. 

As if hearing all these thoughts, Maul shook his head sadly. His voice grew soft, but still it mocked him. “Poor boy, with your bloated sense of responsibility. You’re just another one of his servants. My master has many, many plans… This one must be nothing special, if he leaves it in the hands of insignificant brats.”

“But…” Galli croaked. “He said it would be important one day. He said I would be.” 

“Does he visit this place often?” asked Maul, as he crawled behind a beam of the crashed ship’s frame.

“Yes.”

Maul leaned his head out from behind the beam. “You’re lying.”

Galli gulped. “His advisors visit, and he will come back when the— when it’s finished. I’m not telling you what.”

“You’ll tell me if I want to know,” Maul growled, then added, scoffing, “But I don’t care.”

Galli stared down at his frozen knees, then shut his eyes. He wanted to escape, but it seemed this conversation was the only thing keeping the peace, and if he started to run he’d be cut down. He wanted to be brave, but he couldn’t imagine what he could do to be brave that wasn’t manifestly stupid. 

He never wanted to feel like this. His nightmares always forced him into hiding from a terrible threat that was so great that he had to hold back an instinct to end the struggle for survival quickly, to escape the fear. 

People could give up when they were completely outmatched. He’d seen it happen before, from the other side of the situation, the winning side. 

Fear couldn’t be avoided, if trying to escape it brought you closer to death. Fear had to be embraced. 

He opened his eyes. “Did you crash on purpose or by accident?”

Maul was watching him from a few meters away, leaning on the walking stick he’d made of his own leg with oddly calmer eyes. Much less frantic, no longer darting about wildly. “I did pull the pilot off course. I will not be transported on such a ship like common refuse.”

“I… ah… okay,” said Galli, a little bit skeptical. The crash still seemed mostly an accident, considering the state Maul was in. “Why were you in the trash hauler at all?”

Maul went back to muttering to himself bitterly, “I… I was thrown away. Of course I found my way to the garbage heaps in the end. But no more! No, no, I will not be… I will not live like this.”

Then what was Maul planning? A dreadful worry surged through Galli’s mind that Maul would want to take over the Observatory, lead the project himself, and then return to his master’s side when it was done, leaving Galli behind as just another tool that had outlived its purpose. 

_I have to change his mind before he even starts to think about it_ , Galli realized. _I have to make him think he wants something else._

He scraped the point of his spear along the ground — pretending to be deeply thinking, which was itself hiding a layer of frantic deeper thinking. “The Emperor, Sidious I mean, wants reports on everything that happens here. If I lie and don’t mention you, he would probably punish me when he found out the truth. But you’d kill me if I told him about you. But if you killed me now just to be on the safe side, he’d absolutely know something was wrong here, because I’d stop sending my reports. I don’t know which of you is more dangerous.”

“Why would he suspect a thing? Couldn’t a bandit or wild beast have killed you?” 

“Yes, but if it was a very ordinary death, I could have been faking it to run away,” Galli said, eyes widening a bit as he felt his mind spinning faster than usual. Were these attempts at manipulation nonsense or could some of them actually work? “So he would keep track of me at all times and not trust any report of me disappearing. He would investigate.”

“Ah… then… what are you going to do, Galli? What choice do you have left?”

“I have to try to kill you,” said Galli.

Maul’s lips twisted like he’d bitten an unexpectedly sour fruit, then he started laughing. “You know that is absurd.”

“I know I can’t do it,” Galli agreed. “And Sidious wouldn’t think I could either. After all, he trained you to use magic, and…” He glared up at the bright blue desert sky. “He never taught me anything.” Then he looked back at Maul, brow scrunched tightly. “He could believe it if I tried to fight you and you escaped. Easily.”

“You’re saying,” said Maul slowly, “that in your infinite generosity, you are _letting me go_. But Sidious will still hear of me. Why would I ever go along with this?”

Galli stubbornly set his jaw. “All right, I don’t know who you are,” he said. “A man with horns and eight legs. Seven, actually. I tripped and fell into a shipwreck and saw someone like that covered in blood and garbage trying to crawl away. I couldn’t kill him. He choked me unconscious and then I woke up and couldn’t find him anywhere.”

“You really think you can lie to Lord Sidious! Or lie to me, whichever you are trying to do. He will pull the memories out of your head and sift through them like panning through silt. And it will be _painful_ , I assure you.”

Galli shut up, and hugged his spear tightly, the rush of confidence draining. 

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen,” mumbled the boy.

“Hah. You don’t look it. Malnourished. Stunted. With that squeaky voice.” 

“Shut up,” whispered Galli. 

“… What?”

“I said, shut up!” Galli howled, planting his feet and swinging the spear out in front of him, the blade whistling in the air. His fingers clenched around the shaft, and it started to tremble, trying to tug itself out of his grip, but he clung to it as hard as he could. “I _can_ kill you. I’ve survived out here for years. I’ve starved. I’ve been beaten, clawed at, bitten, broken. I’ve lived with nothing to defend myself. I should be dead times ten, but I can always keep going. That’s why he chose me!”

Maul’s eyes pinched at the corners, and he sat back against a pile of rubble, crossing his arms as he himself deeply pondered the situation. “He doesn’t need you to protect a… building or secret base, or anything like that. He could hire goons or gangs from this planet or a neighboring one…”

“This planet is called Jakku,” said Galli stiffly. He didn’t know why he was standing up for it all of a sudden, giving it the dignity of a name. 

“I’m sure Jakku has its share of lowlifes and criminals.”

“Yes,” said Galli. “They’re always poking around. I deal with them.”

“Sidious does have a project here,” said Maul, “but I don’t think it’s what you’re defending. Or, I suppose it is, from a certain point of view.” 

“I don’t know what you’re saying, now.”

“You think I don’t know what you’ve been through? I survived his tests and trials, too.”

Galli lowered his spearpoint. “Will he make me his apprentice?”

Maul frowned and shook his head. “At your age you should have had real training in Force. But you’ve been left to be trained by this wasteland.” A spark of understanding lit up in his eyes. “A Sith keeps his apprentice close, knowing he trains the one who could one day defeat him. He is a failure as a master if his student’s power does not rival his own. Everything the student learns comes from his future enemy. That is the nature of the Dark Side, how it breeds, how it spreads.”

Maul paused and pressed a hand to his gut, as if the bond between his mechanical parts and his flesh was irritating him.

“But Sidious is not like the other Sith. He has no desire to be surpassed.”

Galli was rapt, drinking in this information, these stories about truly formidable powers passed down through tradition.

“He told me once, as a warning, or a taunt, that he thought the Sith way was archaic and foolish. He found the idea amusing, the best enemy of the Sith were the Sith when they trained their own. He gave this example: an enemy of the Jedi would best be trained by the Jedi instead, then corrupted to the Dark Side.” He leaned forward and focused his eyes on Galli. “Where does your training come from?”

“Jakku,” said Galli, suddenly comprehending more than he’d expected. He remembered the project, what its ultimate goal would be. He hadn’t known at first, but gradually, as the drills bit deeper into the planet, he learned more and more. The Emperor had told him about the life energy trapped deep within it, and how he hated it, found it repulsive. “My master is Jakku.”

_And one day I must destroy it._ But up until this point, he’d never questioned why. He thought of it as a weapon, not the target.

Maul seemed at his most lucid and composed; he wasn’t twitching or shaking or scurrying about. Talking about the Sith had centered his thoughts.

“ _I_ could train you,” he said at last.

After all that talk about training creating your own enemies? Galli’s pulse climbed anyway, he didn’t dare hope. “I can’t use magic.”

“You already do. Not quite _magic_ , though there is such a thing as magic. It is the Force.” 

Galli’s eyes bugged. “I’ve never done anything.” 

“When you were starving,” said Maul, “you’ve fed on the Force itself. I have done so for years on end, how else could I survive with no _stomach_?” He growled, clutching briefly at the air as if to curse his wretched state. Then his voice softened to a purr. “I know how to recognize it in another.”

“But _why_ would you train me?”

“I mean, look at me,” Maul said, suddenly with a petulant frown and oh-pity-me eyes. “I may have some strength left, but I am a husk of my former self. How can I hope to escape this planet without the help of an apprentice? And you want to escape too, don’t you?” 

“Sheev will give us all a purpose,” said Galli. “Not just me, the other children.”

Maul scoffed. “The ones who just now abandoned you?”

Though he planned to kick their backsides later for being so cowardly, Galli nodded. “Even them. Those little kids are getting used to life away from the orphanages. They act tough, then they run away from shadows. Then they learn, they get stronger. I can make them strong.”

Maul casually picked grime out from under a fingernail. “Sidious will never let them live,” he said, sing-song.

Galli’s stomach churned, like he’d taken a gamble with a bit of scavenged meat off a carcass, and it turned out he’d found it too late. “But,” he said numbly. “They serve him too. I brought him so many servants.”

“Don’t be stupid,” said Maul. “When you’re done he’ll have you slaughter them like livestock. And you’ll do it, because you won’t have a choice.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know my old master. He is perfectly, sublimely cruel. It is an art to him.” 

What frightened Galli most of all was knowing that Sheev probably could make him do it. Galli knew he could kill. It was easiest out of desperation, when you were cornered and clawing for your own survival, then killing was like frantically digging your way out of a sand pit; you did everything you could to get to the other side of it. But he was getting better at planning it, and striking at just the right time, like the vworkka spying prey from high in the sky and then swooping down to seize it. 

But was he nothing but a beast? Did he want to leave Jakku with all his promises broken? Civilized men made promises, and forged their own identities. Savages could do no such thing, and had to accept their lot in life. They could barely be men at all.

“If you leave my crew alone, I’ll let you teach me,” Galli managed through the lump in his throat, the memory of the terror of the Emperor, that was warning him not to take such a risk. 

“Then help me out of this forsaken pit,” said Maul, holding out a hand. 

Galli stepped forward, hesitating as he extended his own hand. Both their palms were dirty, bloody, and scarred. 

Despite his claim of not having eaten in years, Maul’s fingers were crushingly strong around Galli’s. 

_But if I really can do magic— Use the Force, I mean_ … 

It was only a suggestion. He suggested that Maul’s arm move with his, that he should be limp, and easy to pull. He felt the Zabrak’s arm go slack. 

Maul stared at him, his vicious yellow eyes squinting. 

“Come _on_ ,” said Galli. “Work with me here.” 

“I knew I felt him,” Maul muttered. “I know that Darkness. But it isn’t… it’s him, it isn’t him. It’s both, it's neither.”

Galli kept on pulling, bracing himself against the piles of trash, while his new Sith master mumbled and muttered to himself about entirely incomprehensible things, trailing machine oil from his broken prosthetics.

He assumed - hoped - the other children would be happy to see him alive, because, he thought soberly, this wasn't just about him anymore. It was about them. He was going to be stronger than he had ever dreamed, and they would all know he'd truly saved them.

**Author's Note:**

> The sequel to this story would be Maul discovering Galli’s severe attention and motivation deficits and having to deal with them to teach him anything. 
> 
> By the way I'm sure this version of Maul still cares a lot about getting revenge on Obi-Wan and all that, I just couldn't find a way for that to work in the story since what would some Jakku kid know about the Jedi? Maul will probably bring it up later.
> 
> Edit: apparently Maul does have a stomach bc alien anatomy sorry guys I’m a fake fan


End file.
